


All Too Human

by sillythings



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto, Sasusaku - Fandom
Genre: Gen, father-daughter bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillythings/pseuds/sillythings
Summary: A little slice of life for the Uchihas.  I was imagining what it might be like for Sarada to acclimate to having her father live with them again.
Relationships: SasuSaku
Comments: 25
Kudos: 228





	All Too Human

Sarada’s Papa was definitely the strongest and best Papa in Konoha. Even the Hokage whom Sarada frankly worshipped ( _ “that loser?” _ Papa once questioned with a smile), did not compare to her daddy. Sasuske Uchiha was a fierce-eyed demon in battle. He was handsome and mysterious, the kind of man that made women swoon and men clench their fists in envy. Chocho sighed wistfully whenever she saw him. She had not yet gotten over the disappointment that Sasuke was not  _ her _ real father (though she would readily admit that her own Papa was the best for her). One of Chocho’s favorite stories to share with the other girls was about the night she ate dinner at the Sarada’s house and Mr. Sasuke was there! He even ate with them at the dinner table! (“Such refined table manners!” Chocho reported, “but he really did not eat much.”) 

Boruto, of course, thought Uncle Sasuke could do no wrong. He was the pinacle of all that a shinobi should be. The  _ absolute  _ coolest. A god that walked among mortals.

And he was, he was! Sarada believed it...but there was another part, a very disloyal part, that was disappointed in how very human he was. After all, her friends and classmates who admired her father did not have to live in the same house with him. They did not know that he squeezed the toothpaste tube from the middle and forgot to rinse out the sink thoroughly when he was finished shaving. They did not know that he sometimes walked around the house in his underwear -- although to be fair, the entire Uchiha family did so at some point. It was a rare morning that did not see Mama dashing around in her bra, frantically trying to steam the wrinkles out of her dress or coat before she headed to the hospital. Sarada herself had been known to be somewhat lackadaisical regarding pants while at home, at least before Papa had returned for good.

There were other things that only someone who shared a home and hearth with Sasuke Uchiha would know. He snored, for one. Not all the time, but when he did, Sarada could hear him throughout the entire house. Thankfully, Mama had taken to using a silencing jutsu on their bedroom when Papa was home, which did help (though Sarada had her suspicions that snoring might not be the only thing Mama was trying to silence). 

Papa made an effort, he really did, to spend time with Sarada. He helped her perfect her fireball, and her shuriken technique was improving every day. Sometimes, he would just hang out with her, watching television or reading together. It was kind of nice when Mama was working late, just the two of them in the living room in a companionable silence. Sarada would loll comfortably on her stomach, stretched on the floor, one foot brushing her Papa’s as she swung her legs. She liked touching him like this, in little ways, reassuring herself that he was still there. 

There was only one problem. 

Her Papa had the worst, the WORST, taste in movies. He did not watch television very much, but when he did it was just the news or boring, old westerns with pale riders on white horses, who wandered mysteriously into town to settle scores or set villagers straight before wandering off... alone...and mysteriously. 

When Sarada had ventured to counter some of Boruto’s hero worship with a few hard cold facts about living with Sasuke Uchiha, Boruto had just laughed and waved away her confession.

“Yeah, yeah,” the boy replied, “At least Sasuke-Sensei doesn’t fart and try to blame it on you!”

Sarada had to admit that Papa was far too well mannered to blame anyone for such a thing, but he was all too human. The last time he had come home from one of his shorter missions, he brought a stomach bug with him. With Mama being a doctor, she was not overly bothered, as there was not any bodily function or fluid that could make her blink an eye, but it had been a shock for Sarada to see her strong, stoic Papa groaning over the toilet bowl.

Sarada stood nervously at the open bathroom door, holding the empty basin Mama always used for her when she had the stomach flu, offering what assistance she could. She had watched Mama wipe Papa’s damp hair away from his pale, sweaty face. A pained spasm crossed his features, and he struggled to his feet.

“Is it the diarrhea, again?” Mama asked, all professional compassion as she tended her patient. 

It was, indeed, and Sarada made her escape, leaving the basin behind and wondering how a man who had crossed space and time to defeat god-like beings could be felled by a stomach virus. 

Her Papa was human. So what? It just made him all the more dear to her. Sarada knew that she and Mama were the only ones privileged enough to see her fearsome father at his most human. Sarada was beginning to understand how much trust and love Papa extended to his little family by allowing such vulnerability.

So, while Sarada was beginning to adjust to her father not quite living up to the god-like image she had envisioned while he was away (and that others persisted in believing), she was having a harder time adjusting to him taking his place next to Mama.

For so long, all Sarada wanted to see was some sign of affection from her father towards her mother.  _ Have you ever kissed Papa? _ she had asked hopefully.  _ Are you even married?! _ she had hurled the hateful accusation at her mother. Well, she had her answers now. Yes, to both. She had even seen her father kiss her mother, though he would be so embarrased to know Sarada had seen. 

Sarada had trouble sleeping through the night. In part, it was due to her mother’s erratic work schedule. Sarada went to bed at a normal hour, but she often woke up when her mother came home. One such night, Sarada awoke to hear both her mother and father up and talking quietly. Creeping down the hallway, she saw them snuggled close on the sofa. As she watched, her Mama tilted up her face expectantly, and Papa bent to oblige her silent request for a kiss. Grinning to herself, Sarada had crept off to bed, delighted and reassured by her parents’ little romance.

However, Sarada and Mama had lived alone long enough that they had a certain routine, a certain way of doing things, and it came as something of a rude shock to Sarada when Papa’s presence upset these routines.

Mama’s work at the hospital meant that her hours were often irregular. It was not uncommon for her to work an 18 hour shift or for her to get off of work at 3 o’clock in the morning. While she made every effort to keep Sarada on a regular schedule, Mama often went to bed at odd hours of the day and night. However, Sarada was always welcome to crawl into her Mama’s bed for a talk and a snuggle whether it was 10 o’clock in the morning or 10 o’clock at night. Even as she grew to be quite a big girl, Sarada always found comfort in her Mama’s bed, snuggled in the soft pillows that smelled like her Mama, warm and safe as she talked about her triumphs and her troubles to her sleepy mother.

But now...now, Sarada’s place in Mama’s bed had been usurped by a man who made the soft pillows smell of sweat and fire and steel. When Sarada crept in one night for a snuggle and a chat, she found Papa in her place with his one arm locked tight around Mama’s waist, holding her close. Sarada had not realized he would be home. Mama’s breaths came slow and steady, sleeping more deeply than usual. Normally, Sarada would have slipped in under the covers and dozed until Mama woke and noticed her, but Papa raised his head from where he had his face buried in Mama’s fine pink hair and fixed Sarada with his sleepy mismatched gaze.

“Sarada?” he asked, his voice rough and gravelly with sleep. “What do you need?”

“No--Nothing,” she stammered, “I just--” Sarada found herself blushing under her father’s stare. “It’s nothing.” 

Mama stirred slightly. “Sarada?” she mumbled.

“Shh,” Papa soothed her, the hand at her waist coming to stroke her forehead, the purple seal just visible in the faint light from the open door. “Go back to sleep.”

He gave Sarada a pointed look, and with a tilt of his chin indicated she needed to head back to her own bed. Sarada obeyed her father with a small sigh and a pinprick of jealousy in her heart. 

Or there was the time Sarada came home in the early afternoon when Mama was napping. Sarada greeted her father who stood on a stool in the living room reattaching a light fixture to the ceiling. His dark hair was streaked with cobwebs, and he nodded at her in an absentminded kind of way. Sarada wondered briefly if this was one of Papa’s home improvement projects (he had a list he would check off when he was home) or if Mama’s strength had gotten away from her again. Regardless, it gave her a warm feeling to see her Papa at home, doing domestic things for the family. Smiling to herself, she headed toward the bedrooms where through the open door, she saw her Mama curled up on her side, just falling into a doze. The window was open, allowing a gentle breeze to stir the curtains. It was peaceful and quiet, and Sarada carefully slipped into the bed next to Mama.

Mama opened her eyes and lifted her arm to bring Sarada in for a cuddle.

“Hello, darling,” Mama whispered with a small yawn. Sarada snuggled close with a smile. 

The breeze was warm, and Mama smelled like disinfectent and soap and her own sweet Mama scent, safe and familiar, though the tang of her father’s steel was still in the air. Sarada began to tell Mama about her day, winding the hem of Mama’s red dress around her finger as she told her about Konohamaru-sensei’s fall and Mitsuki’s quick response to help their teacher. 

“Mm-hmm,” Mama sighed, reaching up a sleepy hand to stroke Sarada’s silky, black hair. Her eyes were closed, but she was listening. Mostly.

It was almost like the old days with just the two of them, though there was evidence of Sasuke’s presence all around. There was the little heap of debris that cluttered the table on his side of the bed: a shuriken, a small scroll, a wadded paper wrapper, and a tiny stack of strange coins. Apparently, her father liked to empty his pockets before he came to bed. Mama certainly was not one to clutter up the side tables like that. One of Papa’s shirts was draped on the chair in the corner, and his belt was on the floor where he had dropped it the night before. 

It was nice, in a way, to see the evidence of his life with them, but even so... _ So annoying _ , Sarada thought with a roll of her eyes,  _ to make a mess like that _ . Not unlike Boruto…

“And that’s another thing, Mama,” Sarada continued, “It really was that dumb Boruto’s fault. He’s so reckless and poor Konahamaru-sensei will need to take it easy for the next few days which means no missions for us, and…”

A shadow falling over the bedspread caused Sarada to pause. She looked up to see her father blocking the doorway of the bedroom.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked, blunt and to the point as usual. He’d brushed the cobwebs from his hair, but the front of his t-shirt was streaked with dust.

“I’m just talking to Mama,” Sarada began, irritation creeping into her voice. What did it look like she was doing? What was it to him, anyway? Wasn’t there another lightbulb to change or something?

“Sakura is resting, leave her be,” he said. 

“What?” Sarada asked, shocked. She was not bothering her mother. Her mother loved being with her. Sakura always wanted to hear about her day. They had settled into this routine long before he had made his return to their lives. How could he be so stern and unfeeling?

“S’okay,” Mama yawned, her eyes still closed, but attempting to come to Sarada’s defense. “S’okay...really.” She turned her face into the pillow and let out the tiniest of snores.

“Leave your mother alone,” Sasuke repeated, brooking no argument from his indignant daughter. “She’s been up all night and most of the morning.” He waited silently for Sarada to obey. 

Sarada realized there was no getting around him. There was something vaguely dangerous in his protective stance, so she stood up and with great dignity brushed past her father who stood like a sentinel in the doorway.

“She doesn’t belong to just you, you know,” Sarada grumbled under her breath as she passed.

“True,” he replied, following her out and shutting the door firmly. “She also belongs to the village, and they have demanded much of her lately. So, we should try to protect her from overdoing it.” He glanced at his sullen daughter. “Couldn’t you sense how low her reserves were?”

Sarada ignored the question and turned into the kitchen to pour herself a drink, but she flushed with embarrassment. She had not noticed. She knew Mama was tired, but she was so strong (she’d broken their house! TWICE!) It did not seem conceivable that her powerhouse of a mother could be weak.

“I just wanted to tell her about my mission,” Sarada said. She sounded petulant to her own ears.

“Why don’t you tell me while I make lunch,” Papa said, turning toward the refrigerator.

“You!” Sarada retorted. She tried to imagine what her father would offer her. Food ration pills? A dried fish from his pocket? She realized that she knew very little about how he ate, how he lived, when he was on the road. 

Sasuke looked at her over the top of the open refrigerator door, nonplussed. 

“Can you even cook?” Sarada asked, curious, “I mean, not over an open fire or something.”

Her father threw her an offended glance.

“I used to make you lunch all the time,” he said, taking out eggs and setting them on the counter. His movements were surprisingly fluid and graceful given he was working with only one hand.

“Yeah, but cooking a meal is a little different from warming up a bottle of milk,” Sarada lifted her nose. She was not a baby any more. Rice porridge and milk was no longer on the menu.

“It wasn’t that long ago, Sarada,” Papa said with the smallest sigh. “And you were never bottle-fed,” he stated with a certainty that made Sarada blush.. She did not need to be reminded of  _ that _ .

“I can make my own lunch,” Sarada told him, more politely, coming to stand next to her dad. “Mama taught me how to cook so I wouldn’t starve when she was working late,” she explained.  _ When you weren’t around _ was the unspoken accusation.  _ So there _ , she thought. 

“I know you can,” he said mildly, not rising to her challenge. He cracked eggs one handed into a bowl. “You are a bit like me, in that respect.” 

He caught her puzzled glance when he handed her the bowl and a whisk. “I had to cook for myself at your age, too,” he explained, his tone light, as if he had not just referred to his life as an orphan, as if he had not in a roundabout way reminded her of his family’s massacre. Her family, too...

Sarada whisked in silence for a moment, watching her dad measure rice and water into the cooker. “I guess...I guess I forgot that you lived alone as a kid,” she said carefully. She knew about the Uchiha massacre in only the barest details. She had not considered the aftermath, what it would have been like for him, alone in the house where his entire family had been murdered. He had not been exactly forthcoming with those details. 

He nodded but did not offer any other response. Sarada considered asking him about it, but now did not seem like the right time. Mama had filled in some, very few, of the missing pieces for her, but she was firm that anything more Sasuke wanted Sarada to know would have to come from his own lips.

The worked in silence. Sarada finished with the eggs while her father heated oil in a pan. She watched him a moment, hands idle, when he added the eggs to the hot pan, working quickly to keep them from scorching. The smell of hot oil, her father’s strong presence at her side triggered a memory she had forgotten, of standing on a stool next to her dad in their old house. He had been making eggs then too, while she stood at his side, carefully, so carefully, cutting a cucumber into thin slices with a small, sharp knife. 

She remembered the lopsided clay vase, painted white with splotches of pink that one might charitably call cherry blossoms sitting on the counter before her, holding a wilting handful of wildflowers. She had made it when she was about 5-years-old, for her mother’s birthday. Her Papa had helped her wrap her lumpy offering in a blue cloth printed with the Uchiha fan before they presented it to her delighted mother. That vase now stood in their new apartment, on the window sill above the sink, a single red camelia poked through the narrow neck. 

“We always made a salad with omelets before,” Sarada remembered aloud. “Do you want me to get out some cucumbers?”

Sasuke glanced at his daughter. “Yeah,” a small smile pulling up the corner of his mouth. 

Sarada found the vegetables set to work chopping and slicing. She found bowls for the salad as her father slid the eggs out of the pan

“None for Mama?” Sarada asked, gesturing to the two plates.

Papa shook his head. “We’ll make something for her when she wakes up,” he smiled again. “Or we could go out to get her something she would enjoy.”

“Like what?” Sarada asked, carrying bowls of rice to the table. She was not testing him, not exactly, but if he said chilled tomatoes or hamburgers...

“Dango?” Sasuke offered, following behind her with the eggs. 

“Yeah,” Sarada smiled at her father. “Yeah, she would like that.”

“I thought so,” he looked at her with a brow raised, such a smug look! Sarada shook her head and bent down over her rice to hide her grin. 

“What were you talking to your mother about?” Papa asked conversationally, starting on his own food. 

What was she talking about? It did not really matter. Sarada really only wanted to spend some time with her. She looked up at her father to find him watching her expectantly.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked. He did not respond but held her gaze, waiting for her to continue.  _ Of course, I want to know, _ the look said. He would not have asked, otherwise. It was not the same as talking to Mama (he wasn’t half-asleep and liable to snore during the good parts), but Sarada thought that Papa might be a good sounding board for her team troubles. 

So, Sarada launched into her tale about her injured Sensei and her idiotic teammate. Papa was, as she suspected, an excellent listener.

  
  



End file.
